Millennial’s Anti-Horse Racing Posts From The 2010s Now A Distant Memory After A Fun Day In A Frock

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Local millennial elder, Silvana (34) has come full circle this week.

From the suburban 18-year-old getting sloshed at the Melbourne Cup, to the angry 20-something inner-city leftie who equated Australia’s beloved past time of racing horses with the rise of Donald Trump and Tony Abbott, to being a young mum who doesn’t get out much and loves dressing up.

She hasn’t gone full Sky News nutjob, but she’s also realised that a lot of the social bandwagoning she did in the 2010s wasn’t that effective, and nobody outside of her low-risk leftie echo chamber really cared about the niche causes that she herself didn’t really care about.

As a young mother with very real political issues to focus on like affordable housing and childcare, Silvana is no longer feeling the need to resist every single thing that brings old codgers joy. Because she’s starting to become a bit of an old codger herself.

This is quite the gear change from her social media-heavy 20s, where she somehow convinced herself that people who liked going to the races were the same people who were voting no to marriage equality.

As recent uni graduate living in a terrace sharehouse with similarly minded friends at the time, She felt the need to speak up about the scary shift in global and local politics.

Unfortunately with no access to trade unions or experienced political organisers, the only way she and her friends knew how to resist Murdoch media’s normalisation of fringe right-wing politics was to clutter social media.

Nearly 15 years later, she realises while she was making noise about surface level cultural stuff, the Liberal government was indexing her HECS debt and gutting crucial services.

And with real life occupying most of her time, nowadays all she can do is vote Teal and attend the odd anti-war march. The old social media footprint is embarrassing, and half of her ‘leftie’ pals from this era have become either anti-vaxxers or weirdly moderate Labor staffers.

So why the fuck not throw on a bit of lippy and a nice frock and just hope that the horse racing industry doesn’t treat these beautiful animals as badly as some grainy JPEG from 2017 said they do. Kids are with the grandparents. Couple champagnes and a catch up with some old mates. Bit of sun and some cute pics with the hubby… Why the fuck not?

And with yesterday’s raceday registering bigger trackside crowds across Australia than any event in the 2010s, she’s definitely not the only one.